MiC up for order on Amazon, August release

[bgas]

I rarely enjoy live tracks. They hardly ever sound as good as the studio versions and you don't get the buzz that comes from actually having been at that particular concert, even if you were, back in the day! I'd have left *all* of them off, consigned them to another release.

Can't quite agree… the live version of We Got Love is far superior in arrangement and delivery to the studio version.  Moot, as the song's not on the set anyway but it illustrates the point.

True, John... but to me, *both* versions are still pretty weak. I know a lot of people have been up in arms that We Got Love isn't on the set, but personally, I just don't feel strongly enough about it in any of its versions to really miss it. I find Holland an uneven album, great in parts, and to me WGL is weaker than the weakest bits of the album as released. I think they called it right by leaving it off Holland back in the day, and I won't miss it on MiC.

And of course I don't hate *all* live tracks, it was silly of me to put it so uncompromisingly - which is why I reconsidered and reworded my original post after posting. Sometimes live versions have a quality the studio ones don't, although it's rare that I find those qualities to be superior, or interesting enough to listen to the live versions more than a couple of times. For example, from the Beach Boys universe, the 70s-era live Heroes and Villains on In Concert is kind of interesting, because it's so different; the live band of the day smoothed out a lot of the tempo changes and created an excellent example of a pounding 70s rock song out of it. But do I like it more than the masterfully crafted, weirdly cut and polished SMiLE gem that is the original H&V single? Not a chance. For starters, any version that omits the barbershop 'boys and girls' section is never going to edge out the studio versions for me - that has to be my favourite section, and leaving it out on the grounds that it's too hard to get it right live is NOT a defence (the WonderBrians managed it three decades later, anyway!).

Add to that the fact that so few released live tracks are *really* live and untinkered with after the concert in post-production... the whole concept of 'live recordings' just often seems a bit too daft, really. Go see a live band if you want to hear live music! But I've always preferred listening to albums through headphones to watching bands live anyway... so that's probably just me.

Seems to me, the live tracks section is going to be great, presuming you enjoy live versions. 
The 1972 Wild Honey with Blondie singing will be paricularly cool to hear! 

[Dave Modny]

In 1972 was it still always Al singing Help Me Rhonda?

No -- in fact the 1972 shows I have all have Carl on lead. I don't know if Dennis did it at all in 72...

Dennis sang the lead on Rhonda at the 11/23/72 Carnegie Hall Show. Don't know who's going to do the version on the box set, but...

[AndrewHickey]

In 1972 was it still always Al singing Help Me Rhonda?

No -- in fact the 1972 shows I have all have Carl on lead. I don't know if Dennis did it at all in 72...

Dennis sang the lead on Rhonda at the 11/23/72 Carnegie Hall Show. Don't know who's going to do the version on the box set, but...

Of course he did. My mistake. Carl sang it at Luxembourg, St John's University, and Munich though. They must have switched lead vocalists on the song some time in late October or November.

[Jim V.]

Has it been mentioned yet that "Goin' To The Beach" has new overdubs? It must have been what Mike was @ Ocean way for.

"...Mike Love's recently completed "Goin' To The Beach..."

http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=1983659

Now I gotta say that I personally was hoping that "Goin' To The Beach" would be on the box, but........

it IS odd that of any of the tracks in the vault that Mike would wanna "finish" it would be the most stereotypically "lame Mike" type song.

[zachrwolfe]

‍

[Rob Dean]

Is "It's A Beautiful Day" considered a decent 80's song or one of the many terrible ones. I can't decide if I'm happy or disappointed it's made the box set.

It's a weird choice, that's for sure.

Oh and its from 1979 , and a great cruising song with super vocals

[monicker]

These are semantics. Overall you might be a customer of Beach Boys products. But just because you have bought Capitol products in the past, doesn't make you a customer of this box set IMO - a previous customer at best. Regardless, my point is that you shouldn't feel ripped off until you've actually spent money on the set. And even then you shoudn't feel ripped off, since you knew the contents before you made the purchase.

You are right it is semantics but to be honest I haven't really heard your definition much before (maybe a geographical thing). For example, we normally talk about somebody being a customer of a store or a brand rather than one specific product I would say. And some people, myself included, are considering buying individual tracks anyway so have to be classed as customers.

I think people can feel something is a rip off without feeling they themselves have been personally ripped off. This set imo should not appeal to any sensible casual fan and so is firmly for the hardcore fans. I do think the current price (much much higher than sets for other artists) can be classed as a 'rip off' although that is a harsh term. I do think Capitol have thought to themselves, 'How can we get the most possible money from the hardcore fans? Include a bunch of songs they already have along with a collectors book and we can charge them $130 for the 2 discs of stuff they will actually want.'

Well, regardless of whether you call yourself a customer or not, my point remains. I don't believe Capitol are aiming for the hard core fans, but rather regular fans. That's my feeling anyways. And it's a 100 bucks for 6 CDs of music which ok, i agree, it's a bit steep these days, but still I can make the choice to rather buy individual tracks if I didn't want to spend money on rehashed material. And as long as this is a option - which we can only presume it will be - I don't think the term 'ripped off' is valid. Pixletwin wrote a really good definition furher up:

"Releasing a product that does not appeal to a specific consumer is not called a "rip off". Releasing a product that does not contain what it purports to contain after a transaction has occurred is a "rip off"."

I have a sincere question here. Say you're at a stadium watching a football game or something and you get thirsty. You feel like you should get a bottle of water. You see a stadium concession person walking toward you selling water and you see that they're $8 a bottle. Are you only qualified to call that potential transaction--8 dollars for a bottle of water--a rip-off if you actually purchase the bottle of water? Only then you may call it a rip-off? Have you never been somewhere and asked the price of something and found it so expensive that you said to yourself, "That's a rip-off" and walked away without purchasing it?

[monicker]

You have to blame The Beach Boys for that one. If they really wanted their unreleased tracks released it could easily happen but they could care less.

"It's almost like the Beach Boys don't *want* to release these tracks they haven't released for 30-40 years!"

Think about what you're saying here, folks...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

Aaah, Mr Blum - once again, you are the voice of reason, as you are so much of the time at a certain other on-line site frequented by a completely different set of, uh, *intensely engaged* individuals (I think the timey-wimey lot are even worse, actually). If people would just listen to you, I really do think we'd have world peace. And I actually mean that.

The answer to all this stuff is probably right there in front of us. I tried to explain it, but Mr Blum has done in one line what I struggled to do in far too many words. People say: how can they leave off Adult Child/more Dennis songs/more live stuff/wack-oh early 80s Brian stuff/delete as appropriate. One possible, super-simple answer: they don't want it released. They cancelled the Adult Child release over 35 years ago because they didn't want it out, and they still don't. The reasons may have changed a bit over time, and hell, the people making the decision certainly have: obviously Carl and Dennis are no longer involved, and Brian might as well be a different person now considering how much his life has changed since then - but a possible explanation is that, they, the people with the power to decide, still don't want to release this stuff. So they haven't. And it doesn't matter what we think of it or how urgently we think 'it needs to be out there in better quality', because it's not up to us, and it's not our box set.

The people on here who are saying there 'need to be' two boxed sets, one of hits and one of rarities, are just not thinking about why boxed sets are released in the real world. It only 'needs to' happen from our perspective, from the view of the fan who wants everything. But it would seem that there aren't enough of us to justify the commercial outlay and time required to create and sell rarities sets like that.

Boxed sets are released to sell, and to make money. An über-rarities orientated approach was attempted with Endless Harmony and then Hawthorne over ten years ago and - more's the pity in my view, because *I* think they were awesome - they didn't, overall, sell in quantities that made them a success in the eyes of the people who make this stuff happen, and who sign off on more of that kind of thing happening. So there's no way they're going to take that kind of approach again, now. The potential for sales of a set like that is even smaller today, in the iTunes era. So it's not going to happen, or at least, it's very unlikely.

For years, we've been saying on here what amounts to: it's just a problem with HOW they get this stuff out there. The problem is that there needs to be a CD set coming out on which they can put this stuff, or it won't make it out. Then we heard about Beach Boys Central, and then it was: that's it! That solves the problem, because there doesn't need to be a big release coming out, all the crazy deep-level tracks we want can be put up there for à la carte download and it will all be out there, and will all be OK. Personally, that would still suck for me, because I still like products I buy to have three dimensions, and not to be made of a string of electrons that can be corrupted or lost; however, I appreciate that I'm increasingly in the minority here.

But consider: what if it ISN'T a problem with how they get this stuff out there? What if they just, flatly, don't want this stuff commercially released? Not a problem with the medium of delivery for the content after all: just that they don't want to deliver the content.

Who knows if all this is true? But that would certainly provide one explanation for why Beach Boys Central has never (to date) happened...

(Watch it launch next week now, and totally booger up my point...)

It doesn't matter what I say, though. The posts after this will still consist of people saying 'I can't believe they didn't put Thank Him on there! How is that possible?'

I think this is the most sound argument postulating why more rarities aren't being released and justifying the outcome. I can get behind this. It's very possible that the group themselves who came up with this stuff that was never released in the first place still don't want this stuff released for whatever personal/artistic reasons.

[monicker]

PS In the same vein, people are moaning about the instrumental track to Transcendental Meditation being included. Well, hold your horses. The placing in the listing would suggest that this is going to be the backing track to 15 Big Ones' 'TM Song' rather than the unlistenably dischordant final track from Friends. And I know which I'd rather listen to an instrumental track from. And even if it IS the Friends track, a lot of the dissonance is in the vocals, so the instrumental may be far more listenable. If it is the 15 Big Ones Track, I will be delighted; to me, that one is another great BW curio that the vocals rather spoil, a bit like Fairy Tale from Holland....

Do you find any dissonant music listenable or is it something specific about Transcendental Meditation's dissonance that you find unlistenable? By the way, there is absolutely no chronology to the 6th disc, so song placement doesn't suggest anything on disc 6. I don't think there's any reason, based on the tracklist, to believe that "Transcendental Meditation" might be "TM Song."

You're totally right regarding placement, monicker. I looked more closely at the track listing and there IS no order on that disc. So if it walks like Transcendental Meditation, quacks like Transcendental Meditation (huh, the track is kinda 'honky', too), and is called Transcendental Meditation, it almost certainly IS Transcendental Meditation. That is: the Friends track.

Oh, I loves me some dissonance (the only Beach Boys example I can think of off the top of my head is the tag of In The Back Of My Mind), but for whatever reason, it just doesn't work for me on the Friends track. Honking saxes have never been my thing; that's prolly just me. I regard that track, in the form I've heard it up to now, at any rate, as a ham-fisted attempt to sound like some of the late 60s rock that was getting popular at the time. And that is SO not my thing, so no: I'm not a fan, I don't judge it a success. My judgement: it doesn't have to be yours or anyone else's. Clearly some here feel that that means I can't understand Brian Wilson's music or whatever. Fine, that's *their* judgement. I don't share it, though.

Despite all of that, though, and as I said yesterday, I remain stoked to hear the backing track (until I hear it, at least...!). These instrumental-only mixes are a revelation sometimes, and also, something else... there's got to be a reason why it's on the set in that new mix. Someone must think it's worth us hearing it. Given that Mark and Alan are two of the major influences on the contents of the box, and I trust their judgement, I have a feeling that there must be something different or in some way arresting about the instrumental that makes it worthy of inclusion.

Course, maybe I've got that wrong, it sounds like ass, and Mike just wanted it on there again to up the TM quotient of the set, or some such nonsense. Until the end of August, who knows?

I will say again i am really excited to hear Transcendental Meditation and Don't Go Near The Water backing tracks because i love those songs, but it's outright comical that those are being included, as it is my understanding that those two songs are pretty much universally hated amongst hardcore fans and completely unknown to the casual fan.  

I am even more interested to hear the DGNTW track. I agree with a few people who've posted here recently: to me, it's a very interesting instrumental track totally wrecked by unbelievably bad lyrics. If the end of the new mix presents the vocals without the banjo, as John Manning speculated above, I will be even happier.

So I don't think it's 'outright comical' that those two tracks are being included to the exclusion of others. Au contraire, I'm keen to hear them. But that's just my opinion.

So many posters here can't seem to see past their own personal wants for this set, and have been outraged when these haven't been met. One person's idea of what 'should have been included to lure more people into the joy of the Beach Boys' is another man's appalling load of tosh that's guaranteed to turn people off. That's the crazy world of subjective opinions for you. Some people think a whole disc should have been live stuff, other people think there should be NO live stuff, or it should come out on another, future set. Just as well they didn't try to base the contents directly on fans' opinions; they'd NEVER have got the damn thing out. Compromise is impossible.

For example, here are some of my opinions, which, at the end of the day, are just as unimportant in the grand scheme of things as yours. Laugh all you like.

I'm not wild about Our Car Club, but as regards Susie Cincinnati and Solar System, to name some tracks that are getting it in the neck for having been included amongst the 'true fans' here, I think the latter two tracks are absolutely excellent, and splendid representatives of the band during the era they were made and/or released (I think the bass on SC rocks, especially the subsonic thunder in the tag, courtesy of Mr Desper's engineering skills, and as for Solar System: Crazy mid-70s Brian! Mad Love You synths! Absurd, throwaway lyrics! It works for me, although I can see that it may well not gel for everyone). It seems entirely right that they should be on the box to me, given what the box is and what it's trying to do. My opinion. You may not share that, of course.

I rarely enjoy live tracks. They hardly ever sound as good as the studio versions and you don't get the buzz that comes from actually having been at that particular concert, even if you were, back in the day! I'd have left *all* of them off, consigned them to another release. On the other hand, I'm delighted to get Help You Rhonda and California Girls from the Wally Heider Lei'd In Hawaii recordings. Can't get enough of those, and those two, together with the already released God Only Knows from Endless Harmony are, in my opinion, the pick of the bunch.

People want *more* 80s tracks? For me, they could stop the set right after Baby Blue and skip straight to Soul Searching and You're Still A Mystery. I'm almost certainly in a minority here in that I think some great music was made in the 80s. But I don't think much of it got made by the Beach Boys. I'm very happy with the fact that Chasing The Sky and Somewhere Near Japan haven't made it on this. I think they're over-produced 80s schlock, anodyne photocopied 'rawwk' that drags down the name of The Beach Boys, and that a few nice harmonies from Carl cannot rescue from the pit of sub-Peter Cetera hell where they belong. I think their 'standing' with fans may result from the fact that these songs number amongst the only even slightly decent tracks the boys managed to dredge together during this period. But that doesn't make them good in my ears, or make me want to buy them or listen to them. There you go. But like I said - that's just me. And just to prove how crazy and apparently inconsistent personal opinions can be, I quite like Make It Big and She Believes In Love Again - they're something of an 80s guilty pleasure for me. But even I can see that they pretty much derive from a similar circle of the netherworld as CTS and SNJ. Maybe the one just above the sub-Peter Cetera one?

...so, thank goodness they didn't base the set around *my* opinions either, right?

I'm in agreement with most of what you've said here but i'm puzzled by you saying "So many posters here can't seem to see past their own personal wants for this set, and have been outraged when these haven't been met" right after you just got through quoting me saying that I *LOVE* DGNTW and TM (by the way, lyrics, vocals and all), but find it funny that they're on the set in backing track form since (at least how it appears to me) they're panned by the majority of the hardcore fanbase, and unknown to casual fans. Also, i am in the minority (i think any BB minority that exists, i'm in it) in that i love radio promos and "inconsequential" things of that nature. But if they're trying to please as many fans as possible here, they, uhm, probably shouldn't have put those on there. So, no, it's not just about personal wants. At least not for me.

[Mahalo]

This makes sense... but they are too blind to see the artistic value of say, uh, Thank Him as opposed to California Dreamin'. It's just what it is. I accept that.

I know that dudes like Mark and Alan B. and everyone else knows this. Therefore I salute them..and while I still feel as strongly as I do, it is important to be excited about all the cool stuff we are about to hear...

[Shady]

Has it been mentioned yet that "Goin' To The Beach" has new overdubs? It must have been what Mike was @ Ocean way for.

"...Mike Love's recently completed "Goin' To The Beach..."

http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=1983659

So that's what Mike was doing in the studio, mystery solved..

[Jonathan Blum]

You really think they're going to lay down 100 dollars for a boxset of hits and rarities as opposed to 20 bucks for 50 Big Ones? That's already making a massive assumption that the average listener even buys CDs anymore, while most just illegally download.

The average Beach Boys listener can barely work their email, judging by my parents.  The central appeal of the band is not to the torrenting generation...

Cheers,
Jon Blum

[monicker]

I guess Jon Blum’s post is a good segue to a thought that’s been swimming around my brain. It’s a bit morbid. Bear with me. So Capitol continually banks on baby boomers buying these Beach Boys compilations year after year, right? The fans that grew up with the band. The guys who are losing or already lost their hair and might even wear a Hawaiian shirt every now and then . People who don’t know how to illegally download music without a younger family member around to show them, but even then would opt for a physical release because that’s what they’ve known their whole life, that’s the only way they legitimize a music release. And they have some money to throw around and buy this stuff, right? Well...these people...are going to be dead soon... I know, i know, this isn’t exactly the sort of subject we want to be thinking about now. But i was thinking, when that market no longer exists (and the sad reality is that the band members are obviously in the same demographic), do you think Capitol will maybe shift their sales approach a bit regarding the BB to a younger, “cooler”/“edgy” (i think i just vomited in my mouth a little bit) demographic and focus on less commercial ventures, things that transcend the massive Beach Boys branding, and are more niche, off the wall, and generally considered more “artistic”? (Sorry about all the terms in quotation marks) Do we just need to wait, i don’t know, twenty years or so? Or am i talkin' poppycock?

Sincere apologies for the grim topic. It's hard not to wonder though what the decision making process for these sort of BB releases is going to look like when the guys themselves and the fans of their age group who are largely responsible for perpetuating a certain image of the Beach Boys are no longer around... 

[Wirestone]

In 20 years or so, I doubt the music marketplace will be that recognizable to us. Mainly streaming services, I'd guess, perhaps some downloads. Not sure what form archival releases would take.

And I wonder how much difference the average BB listener actually makes to this equation. I'd say the continuing interference of the BRI principals is by far the biggest issue. It might take the ... um ... departure of certain band members (possibly all of them) from the mortal coil to get the really good/obscure stuff out in big quantities. And that could well be substantially less than 20 years off. Maybe 5-10.

[Jeff]

I guess Jon Blum’s post is a good segue to a thought that’s been swimming around my brain. It’s a bit morbid. Bear with me. So Capitol continually banks on baby boomers buying these Beach Boys compilations year after year, right? The fans that grew up with the band. The guys who are losing or already lost their hair and might even wear a Hawaiian shirt every now and then . People who don’t know how to illegally download music without a younger family member around to show them, but even then would opt for a physical release because that’s what they’ve known their whole life, that’s the only way they legitimize a music release. And they have some money to throw around and buy this stuff, right? Well...these people...are going to be dead soon... I know, i know, this isn’t exactly the sort of subject we want to be thinking about now. But i was thinking, when that market no longer exists (and the sad reality is that the band members are obviously in the same demographic), do you think Capitol will maybe shift their sales approach a bit regarding the BB to a younger, “cooler”/“edgy” (i think i just vomited in my mouth a little bit) demographic and focus on less commercial ventures, things that transcend the massive Beach Boys branding, and are more niche, off the wall, and generally considered more “artistic”? (Sorry about all the terms in quotation marks) Do we just need to wait, i don’t know, twenty years or so? Or am i talkin' poppycock?

Sincere apologies for the grim topic. It's hard not to wonder though what the decision making process for these sort of BB releases is going to look like when the guys themselves and the fans of their age group who are largely responsible for perpetuating a certain image of the Beach Boys are no longer around... 

"Hawaiian" shirts (actually called Aloha shirts) aren't just for the older set.  Some of us wear them every work day.

[MarcellaHasDirtyFeet]

Please be the Rhonda from Carnegie Hall...

I'm really excited for this box set. And I hope that this thread continues to veer toward a discussion of the music that will be on MiC and not on what's not on MiC, or the price.

[lance]

I'm super excited about it, overall.

[Dave Modny]

Please be the Rhonda from Carnegie Hall...

It actually states that it's from New Jersey ('72) in the track description. I believe they played both in August and September of '72 there, as well as November of '72 -- a few days before Carnegie Hall.

Edit: Apparently the November 19th shows at the Capitol Theater in Passaic, NJ were recorded, so that might bode well for a Dennis lead (which kind of makes sense in terms of the track's inclusion).

[Mikie]

ANYTHING live early 70's is gonna be good. '71 -'75. Anything in that range is gonna be good, don't worry. Blondie, Ricky, The Dragons, Hinsche, Carter, Munoz, Figueroa, Peeler, and Kowalski. What a top shelf combo working with Mike, Carl, Dennis, and Al up front!

[Les P]

Has it been mentioned yet that "Goin' To The Beach" has new overdubs? It must have been what Mike was @ Ocean way for.

"...Mike Love's recently completed "Goin' To The Beach..."

http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=1983659

Now I gotta say that I personally was hoping that "Goin' To The Beach" would be on the box, but........

it IS odd that of any of the tracks in the vault that Mike would wanna "finish" it would be the most stereotypically "lame Mike" type song.

Apparently he has wanted to release it for some time.  From the Wikipedia entry for "Summer in Paradise":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_in_Paradise

During the making of the 1993 RTE documentary The Beach Boys Today, Mike Love described the album to writer-director Michael Feeney Callan as "an important exercise in continuity and unity," and lamented the restrictions on Brian Wilson's availability in what was planned as a fully cohesive thirtieth anniversary album. "It would really have been great to rework tracks like "Goin' to the Beach," said Love.

[Jay]

ANYTHING live early 70's is gonna be good. '71 -'75. Anything in that range is gonna be good, don't worry. Blondie, Ricky, The Dragons, Hinsche, Carter, Munoz, Figueroa, and Kowalski. What a top shelf combo working with Mike, Carl, Dennis, and Al up front!

I wonder what the chances are of a soundboard recording of I'm Waiting For The Day from 1975 existing. Billy Hinsche and Al really did a good job of splitting the lead in concert.

[Cabinessenceking]

Has it been mentioned yet that "Goin' To The Beach" has new overdubs? It must have been what Mike was @ Ocean way for.

"...Mike Love's recently completed "Goin' To The Beach..."

http://www.wmmr.com/music/news/story.aspx?ID=1983659

Now I gotta say that I personally was hoping that "Goin' To The Beach" would be on the box, but........

it IS odd that of any of the tracks in the vault that Mike would wanna "finish" it would be the most stereotypically "lame Mike" type song.

he is a stereotypical lame guy in general I have them impression. personally nothing surprises me, although one must question the merits of including the legendary 'Goin To The Beach' over other unreleased songs...

[lee]

I can't wait to hear Friends and Little Bird live. I was hoping that the live Wild Honey would have Carl on lead since I've found live versions with Blondie on lead but can't find any with Carl.

I really wish that a vocal only version of Time To Get Alone would have made the set but that's the only thing I'm really disappointed about. Considering I don't have any bootlegs, I'm really looking forward to getting this box for the unreleased tracks.

[Mikie]

ANYTHING live early 70's is gonna be good. '71 -'75. Anything in that range is gonna be good, don't worry. Blondie, Ricky, The Dragons, Hinsche, Carter, Munoz, Figueroa, and Kowalski. What a top shelf combo working with Mike, Carl, Dennis, and Al up front!

I wonder what the chances are of a soundboard recording of I'm Waiting For The Day from 1975 existing. Billy Hinsche and Al really did a good job of splitting the lead in concert.

Anything from Carnegie Hall to Fillmore East to Luxembourg to Central Park to Winterland to MSG to Nassau to Wembley to Beachago would be fine with me. Gimme the entire concerts - forget the onesy twosy songs. Greedy cus that I are.....

[Jay]

ANYTHING live early 70's is gonna be good. '71 -'75. Anything in that range is gonna be good, don't worry. Blondie, Ricky, The Dragons, Hinsche, Carter, Munoz, Figueroa, and Kowalski. What a top shelf combo working with Mike, Carl, Dennis, and Al up front!

I wonder what the chances are of a soundboard recording of I'm Waiting For The Day from 1975 existing. Billy Hinsche and Al really did a good job of splitting the lead in concert.

Anything from Carnegie Hall to Fillmore East to Luxembourg to Central Park to Winterland to MSG to Nassau to Wembley to Beachago would be fine with me. Gimme the entire concerts - forget the onesy twosy songs. Greedy cus that I are.....

I'd love  a 1971-76 live box set of complete shows.